Nietzsche's Art of Interpretation: The Role of the Epigraph in GM III

31 Pages·2017·0.59 MB·English

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Philosophy Theses Department of Philosophy
Summer 8-7-2018
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Ryan McCoy
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/philosophy_theses
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McCoy, Ryan, "Nietzsche's Art of Interpretation: The Role of the Epigraph in GM III." Thesis, Georgia State
University, 2018.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/12226309
This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Philosophy at ScholarWorks @
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NIETZSCHE’S ART OF INTERPRETATION: THE ROLE OF THE EPIGRAPH IN GM III

by

RYAN E. MCCOY

Under the Direction of Jessica Berry, PhD

ABSTRACT
Prior to the third essay of his Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche affixes a fragment from Thus
Spoke Zarathustra. The purpose of the fragment seems explicit in the Genealogy’s preface where
Nietzsche tells us that the essay is a commentary on an aphorism. However, the relationship of
the fragment to the third essay is unclear. In response, several commentators have offered a
solution: namely, to disregard the fragment from Zarathustra and to read the first section of the
third essay as the object of Nietzsche’s commentary. Since this reading, the puzzle concerning
Nietzsche’s aphorism has been considered solved. In this thesis, I make a case for (i) why we
should revive this debate, (ii) why we should restore the most natural reading of the preface,
which makes the fragment from Zarathustra the aphorism Nietzsche refers to there, and (iii) how
we can make sense of its connection to the third essay.

INDEX WORDS: Nietzsche, Pyrrhonian Skepticism, Sextus Empiricus, German Philosophy
NIETZSCHE’S ART OF INTERPRETATION: THE ROLE OF THE EPIGRAPH IN GM III

by

RYAN E. MCCOY

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts
in the College of Arts and Sciences
Georgia State University
2018
Copyright by
Ryan E. McCoy
2018
NIETZSCHE’S ART OF INTERPRETATION: THE ROLE OF THE EPIGRAPH IN GM III

by

RYAN E. MCCOY

Committee Chair: Jessica Berry

Committee: Sebastian Rand

Electronic Version Approved:

Office of Graduate Studies
College of Arts and Sciences
Georgia State University
May 2018
v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are many people whose comments, questions, and instruction have played an
invaluable role in the writing of this thesis. I would first like to thank Jessica Berry. Her
insightful and encouraging guidance throughout this process has benefitted not only the content
of this thesis but my academic writing as a whole. I am grateful as well to Sebastian Rand for
serving on my committee, in addition to his courses on Hegel and Heidegger that have
challenged me as a reader of philosophy. Moreover, I would like to thank Tim O’Keefe whose
course on ancient ethics has contributed greatly to my understanding of Pyrrhonian skepticism.
In closing, I would like to thank the friends and faculty at Belmont University who
inspired me to not only pursue graduate study in philosophy, but perhaps more importantly, to
approach philosophy as a way of life that extends beyond the academy. In particular, I would like
to thank Mark Anderson, who also provided insightful comments and encouragement on an early
draft of this thesis, as well as Andy Davis and Mélanie Walton. In addition, I am grateful to M.C.
Cunningham, Topher Lutz, and Samm Willard for their continuous friendship and conversation.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................ V
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...................................................................................... VII
1 INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................... 1
2 ASSESSING THE STANDARD VIEW .................................................................. 3
3 EQUIPOLLENCE AND THE ART OF INTERPRETATION ............................ 7
4 THE POWER OF THE ASCETIC IDEAL: A MATTER OF
INTERPRETATION .................................................................................................................. 11
5 ZARATHUSTRA AS COUNTER-IDEAL: THE ROLE OF THE EPIGRAPH 14
6 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................... 14
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 23
vii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Works by Nietzsche
A The Anti-Christ, translated by Judith Norman, in Aaron Ridley and Judith Norman (eds.),
The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, and Other Writings (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005).
BGE Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, translated by Judith
Norman, in Rolf-Peter Hortsmann and Judith Norman (eds.), Beyond Good and Evil
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
EH Ecce Homo, translated by Judith Norman, in Aaron Ridley and Judith Norman (eds.), The
Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, and Other Writings (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005).
GM On the Genealogy of Morality, translated by Maudmarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen
(Indianapolis: Hackett, 1998).
KSA Sämtliche Werke, Kritische Studienausgabe, edited Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari
(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1980).
TI Twilight of the Idols, translated by Judith Norman, in Aaron Ridley and Judith Norman
(eds.), The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, and Other Writings
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
Z Thus Spoke Zarathustra, translated by Walter Kaufmann, in Kaufmann (ed.), The
Portable Nietzsche (New York: Viking, 1954).
Other Works
PH Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism, translated by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
1
1 INTRODUCTION
Prior to the third essay of his On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche affixes a short
epigraph from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The epigraph reads, “Carefree, mocking, violent—thus
wisdom wants us: she is a woman, she always loves only a warrior” (GM III Epigraph). The
purpose of the epigraph is seemingly made explicit in the Genealogy’s preface. There he writes,
“In the third treatise of this book I have offered a sample of what I call ‘interpretation
[Auslegung]’ in such a case:—an aphorism [ein Aphorismus] is placed before this treatise, the
treatise itself is a commentary on it” (GM P 8). Yet the relationship of the epigraph to the third
essay as a whole is unclear, given the epigraph’s mystifying content: How are we to connect the
images of “wisdom” and “warrior” to Nietzsche’s discussion of the “meaning” of ascetic ideals?
Several commentators, including Maudemarie Clark, Christopher Janaway, and John
Wilcox, have offered a solution: namely, to disregard the epigraph from Zarathustra and to read
the first section of the third essay as the object of Nietzsche’s interpretation and commentary.1 In
short, these commentators have argued that the first section (GM III 1) is Nietzsche’s aphorism,
given that it outlines the entire essay (GM III) in condensed form. The epigraph from
Zarathustra is just a test for readers, meant to distract us from seeing the first section as
Nietzsche’s aphorism. On this reading, the Zarathustra epigraph is at best tangentially related to
the third essay.
Since the inception of this reading, which I call the “standard view,” the debate
concerning Nietzsche’s aphorism in the Genealogy has died out. If we consider as a sample the
recent commentaries and monographs on the Genealogy, we see that scholars now take the
standard view put forth by Clark, Janaway, and Wilcox as veritable fact. For example, Brian

1 This reading was first argued for by Clark (1997), Janaway (1997), Wilcox (1997).
2
Leiter in his Nietzsche on Morality refers to GM III 1 as “the epigraph to [the third essay.]”2
Lawrence Hatab in his commentary on the Genealogy goes so far as to say that “John Wilcox,
Maudemarie Clark, and Christopher Janaway have shown conclusively that the aphorism in
question is actually [GM III 1.]”3 In the following, I make a case for (i) why we should revive
this debate, (ii) why we should restore the most natural reading of the preface, which makes the
epigraph from Zarathustra the aphorism Nietzsche refers to there, and (iii) how we can make
sense of its connection to the third essay.
I begin with an assessment of the “standard view” and show how this reading involves
speculation beyond textual evidence, as well as how it fails to account for Nietzsche’s novel use
of ‘interpretation [Auslegung]’ introduced in the preface. Following my case for why we should
reassess the standard view, I explain what Nietzsche means by the “art of interpretation [Kunst
der Auslegung]” and argue that this involves the skeptical tactic of presenting equipollent
arguments, a technique associated with Pyrrohnian skepticism in which the skeptic opposes a
given dogmatic claim with an interpretation or argument of equal force. The result is not the
assertion of any new dogmatic claim, but rather suspension of judgment on the matter in general.
I then give a brief synopsis of the Genealogy’s third essay in order to illuminate Nietzsche’s
characterization of the ascetic ideal as an unrivaled “system of interpretation [System von
Interpretation]” (GM III 23). This will make clear why Nietzsche’s art of interpretation is
significant for combatting the ascetic ideal. In the final section, I show how Nietzsche’s attack on
the ascetic ideal in the third essay is a commentary on the Zarathustra epigraph, and

2 Leiter (2002: 264).
3 Hatab (2008: 113). One exception to the general consensus regarding the “standard view” is Marsden
(2006) who argues that GM III 1 does not accord with any orthodox meaning of the term “aphorism.”
However, Marsden’s argument is itself problematic when we consider that Nietzsche refers to a variety
of works as aphoristic that contain aphorisms much longer than GM III 1, e.g. Human, All too Human
(GM Preface 2).